“…and he told him to urge her to go into the king’s presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people” Esther 4:8b.

During the time of Esther it was common for the queen to go many months without seeing the king. There was always a threat that if the queen approached the king without an invitation he had the right to kill her. Esther’s king was very fickle…her king had a track record of recycling queens…her king allowed the agenda of others to sway him into misusing his power. There were ever-changing agendas and alliances that never established a stable environment physically, emotionally or politically. Esther was scared for her life when her uncle demanded that she appear before the king, begging him for mercy and deliverance for her people.

My grandmother was an amazing woman of faith with a testimony that fails to equal any I have yet to see. She maintained a journal for over 60 years documenting her walk with God. One day when I was reading a portion from the season of my grandfather’s death, I was stopped in my tracks when I read what she had written during her intense grief. She wrote, ‘I don’t have to beg for healing but simply wait on it like the earth waits on spring.’ Her confidence in God’s mercy and deliverance was not something she even had to ask for but simply wait for.

Unlike Esther, we have a King who begs us to enter into His presence…a King who gave us a ‘once and for all’ invitation to appear through Jesus Christ…a King who is neither fickle nor swayed by the agenda of man. Grandmother understood and claimed her position in Christ approaching Him with confidence, assurance and praise within her suffering…our definition of biblical joy.

The more we get to know our King the more we understand that the great pursuit is not our initiation, but our response to God’s relentless pursuit of us. We don’t have to wring our hands or beg for something we already have in Him. Through Christ, we are not beggars but overcomers. Let us approach our King in complete confidence and receive what He has already promised is ours.

Praise to the King who never changes, never abandons and never leaves us alone in our suffering.

I love how you make con nections among three relationships with king/Kings : Esther's, your grandmother's and a Christian's. The article is deep and succinct. However, I'd like to see a smoother transition between the first and second paragraphs.
A wonderful devotional!